


Sea shells and all the things he left behind

by loosingletters



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Family Reunions, Gen, Mermaids & Sirens, no capes AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2020-10-24 07:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20702555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters
Summary: Dick Grayson didn’t go to the beach. He didn’t watch any ocean documentaries, he didn’t talk about his childhood and he most certainly did not work with the mers at Blüdhaven’s Ocean Life Rehabilitation center. And then they brought in a kid clinging to an injured mer and Dick was 9 years old again and drowning.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raberba girl (Raberba_girl)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raberba_girl/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Gifts From the Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19183363) by [Raberba girl (Raberba_girl)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raberba_girl/pseuds/Raberba%20girl). 

> So this work was inspired by the wonderful story "Gifts From the Sea" - mainly by me wondering how it would turn out the other way round with the kids being the human ones while Bruce is the mer.  
So this is my gift to its amazing author, a little thanks for writing and constantly updating one of my fave batfam stories!

Dick already knew it was going to be a bad day when he got up. His back hurt and his throat itched and he had the taste of seawater on his tongue, though maybe that was just residue from his tears. Dick couldn’t recall what he had dreamed, but when he closed his eyes, orange flashed in front of his vision.

It was better if he didn’t remember.

Dick contemplated staying home sick, playing catch up with another happy kids’ show he had missed out on when he noticed his phone vibrating. It was nothing new for Dick to wake up to a hundred messages or more - the benefits of being friends with a lot of people who kept odd hours.

To his surprise though, it wasn’t the _Titanic Idiots_ group chat blowing up his phone, just Wally. He was getting a new message every second - either Wally was taking his break way too early or they had an emergency at work.

Dick’s shift didn’t even start until twelve and it was what - nine in the morning?

Instead of bothering with reading through all of the messages, he just called Wally. The phone rang only once and his friend already answered.

“Dick! Holy fuck, you need to get your ass here like immediately we’re way too understaffed and nobody knows what we’re supposed to be doing Roy already called up OLRC main office this is why you don’t let a bunch of volunteers and marine life bachelors work on their own without any superior supervision of you know the people who have actually been trained to deal with-”

“Wally. _Breathe_. Calm down. What’s going on?”

Dick could hear Wally take a few deep breaths before he continued speaking, only a bit slower than before. At least Dick could make out where a sentence started and where it ended.

“We’ve got an emergency. A kid showed up with an unidentified and severely injured mer today. We think it’s a mermaid, but it doesn’t have a tag from what we can tell, and it’s super hostile, well as hostile as mermaids get given they’re the shiest mers, so we can’t get near it. The kid won’t speak either and separating the two already probably broke Donna’s arm. We need some more manpower here.”

Dick couldn’t wait to eat breakfast. Nutella, marmalade, honey - whatever would get rid off the salty taste on his tongue.

“Wally, I don’t work with the mers, you know that.”

“Yes, Dick, and I’m sorry, but you’re the only guy we’ve got.”

Somehow Wally managed to ooze his frustration and worry over the phone. “Please, Dick. You can look after the kid in the meanwhile and I can help check on the mer, but we need someone here.”

Dick’s premonition proved to be true. He should have just stayed in bed. He marched into the direction of his wardrobe, checking if he still had any clean clothes left.

“Give me thirty minutes to get dressed and grab breakfast and I’ll be there.”

“Thank you so, so much. I owe you.”

Wally’s evident relief made Dick smile. The redhead was Dick’s oldest friend. He had helped Dick find his place in a world he hardly understood, willingly shared a dorm with the resident _weird kid_ and had managed to get Dick this summer job in-between college classes, if anything, Dick owed him.

“No prob, Wally,” Dick replied and ended the call.

He quickly grabbed an old pair of jeans and a shirt he was pretty sure was one of Roy’s hand-me-downs. Their small kitchen was always stuffed full due to Wally’s metabolic disorder, so it didn’t take much time to find something sugary and eatable that would still fill him up and prepare him for the stress that was to come.

Twenty minutes later, he was standing in front of Blüdhaven’s Ocean Life Rehabilitation Center. Dick didn’t even study marine biology. He was taking theatre classes, set on his goal to be as far away from the ocean as he could possibly be.

Yeah, that had turned out exactly like planned.

Not trusting himself to not stall any longer, Dick stepped into the strangely deserted building and headed straight to the part where they kept the mers. Before he could even reach the actual aquarium though, Wally already caught him.

His friend looked way too tired for someone who started his shift two hours ago. He stood right next to a couple boxes, his right hand holding an energy drink while his left was occupied with a donut.

“Dick!” Wally exclaimed and quickly swallowed the food in his mouth. “You’re here!”

Dick just rolled his eyes and focused on everything but his stomachs doing flips. “You did ask me to come. So where’s the kid?”

“In the office right here,” Wally said and pointed at the closed door behind him. “The kid’s not speaking at all. We’ve tried every language we’ve got between all of us, even some clumsy ASL, but the kid won’t react. Wouldn’t even look us in the eyes. And since he still has a knife, we don’t want to surprise him. CPS has already been notified, but they’re overrun as always and won’t come until the afternoon, but maybe you can get him to talk? You’re great with kids.”

That was an exaggeration. Dick was good with kids because he could keep them entertained and tell them the stories that captivated them. Generally speaking, that included kids up to age twelve. Everyone above that? Nope, not Dick’s age group.

Dick sighed. “I mean, I can try. Just don’t expect much, alright?”

Wally smiled, exhausted, but as bright as always. “I’m not expecting a miracle, Boy Wonder. Let me just finish and I’ll introduce you. If he doesn’t start screaming on sight seeing the terrible bags under your eyes-”

“And whose fault are they?”

“- then I’ll leave you two and look after the mer.”

Wally inhaled the remains of his snack and wiped his mouth clean on his jacket. Then he slowly opened the door.

The office had been pretty much emptied. Dick recalled that this was Dinah’s office/private break room, but she was on vacation until the end of the month. All of her belongings must be in the boxes.

When Dick and Wally entered the room and the kid looked up, measuring him. The boy had dark hair and his skin was quite pale by comparison. His blue eyes were sharp, evaluating. He definitely wasn’t keeping silent because of shock then.

The boy was dressed almost normally, aside from the old blood sticking to his hoodie. He wore jeans that had obviously been wet in the past hours. No wonder if he had shown up with a mer - Dick should have asked Wally how that had gone down.

“Hey, kiddo,” Wally said. “This is my friend Dick. He’ll stay here with you now if that’s alright?”

The kid didn’t react. He kept staring at Dick and playing around with his knife and the cord of his necklace. Dick studied it and almost took a step back when he realized what he was looking at.

_Shark teeth, dark black scales, corals, fish bones, and two shells._

The necklace was identical to the one Dick had stuffed in the darkest corner of his dresser, except Dick’s had seven shells more, one for each year he had survived. Dick had almost thrown it out in anger multiple times, but in the end, he’d always kept it and felt guilty for even thinking of destroying it.

Suddenly, the puzzle pieces slotted together smoothly.

Dick had grown up multilingual until his parents had died. And then, _after_, he’d spoken only some English. His primary language had been his adopted father’s language made up of clicks and snarls.

_“Who are you?”_ Dick asked, his throat almost hurting from the sounds, and finally, the boy paid attention.

His expression was a stunned one, like Dick’s question had torn down a wall so high you couldn’t even imagine anything lingering behind it.

While Wally looked at Dick like he was crazy, the kid already had tears forming in his eyes.

_“You speak!” _The kid still had a strong English accent, he couldn’t have been learning to speak for long.

_“I was taught, like you,” _Dick replied. “_What are you doing here.”_

_“You speak,”_ the kid only repeated, hope almost choking him. _“You’re human and you speak! You’re eldest-who-can-fly-on-land.”_

Now it was Dick’s turn to be stunned while the kid started crying for real.

_“You’ve got to help us. He’d got hurt badly after missed-love-bright-as-the-sun died and then venom-in-his-blood came and he said not to come but I didn’t know who else to turn to-”_

_“He-”_ Dick’s eyes went wide and he jumped up. _“Come with me, **now**.”_

“Dick, what the hell is going on?” Wally shouted as Dick turned into the other direction and leaped into a sprint.

He and the kid quickly followed him, but all Dick could think of that they were going to be too late, that he wasn’t going to make it-

“Dick, what are you doing!?”

“Siren!” Dick shouted back. “The mer is a siren, not a mermaid!”

Behind him, Dick could hear Wally starting to curse. None of the people on shift were actually experienced in handling anything above a selkie. And if the kid was as close to Bruce at the necklace suggested, then he wouldn’t just stop at a broken arm, no matter how injured he was.

Dick pretty much kicked the door to the aquarium open, and not a minute too late. Roy had just fallen into the water and a massive dark body was pulling at his clothes while the others desperately tried to reach for him.

Why had nobody broken the cabinet with the tranquilizers?

Dick didn’t hesitate, he didn’t even bother to kick off his shoes or get rid off his jacket, he just jumped right into the water, followed by the hysteric sounds of his friends.

_“Where is my son!?”_

The water engulfed him and Dick is seventeen and leaving the next, fifteen and on the surface for the first time in years, thirteen and complaining he’s slower than Kori and Babs, eleven and falling asleep on scales, nine years old and drowning alongside his parents, except he got saved by-

“Bruce!”

The siren suddenly let go of Roy, who struggled to get back to the surface and just stared at Dick like he couldn’t quite believe he was there.

“Dick,” Bruce said. _“My eldest-who-can-fly.”_

The name Bruce had given him when he’d taken Dick into his family had changed. Somehow that was still what caught him off-guard the most.

Dick had left screaming, spitting poison, but he was _the-eldest_ now, not _the-reject-who-left_ though that opened a whole other can of worms.

Bruce looked less like the predator he had just moments before. His eyes were still dark and cat-like, and his massive black tail with razor-sharp fins lingered in the deep of the pool. He had more scars than years ago, never mind the many festering lacerations they needed to take care off as soon as possible.

But Bruce’s expression was made up of terrified hopefulness. Dick was glad he didn’t have a mirror. He didn’t want to know what face he was making, but going by the sound of roaring waves in his ears, he was close to heartbreak as well.

_“Hi, Dad.”_

The words were much too weak for what he wanted to say but-

They’d have to be enough for now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suprise nerds, bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.  
Anyway, Happy Mermay!  
I wrote this in one hour exact and I have no idea how.

Dick didn’t have a chance to explain anything to Wally or anyone else at the aquarium until after Bruce was settled. The siren wouldn’t sleep, Dick would be surprised if he did in unfamiliar terrain, but he had calmed again. The boy, Tim, or _secret-who-paints_ if Dick had caught that correctly, was sitting at the edge of the pool, dressed in a new set of clothes. His legs were dangling in the water and every so often Bruce would pull at them, reassuring himself and the boy. Far more often than that though, his large tail fin dragged against Dick’s legs. His scales were sharp, could cut if grabbed incorrectly, but he had never hurt Dick and even now caressed him as softly as he used to. The entire day had been exhausting and nothing short of a train wreck.

Dick wanted to go home and sleep.

The fact that he couldn’t really recall whether home was the apartment he shared or the caves he had grown up in didn’t help his mind either.

His tiredness must show because Roy and Wally both were sitting next to him in the red zone – the five-meter room all handlers were supposed to stay out of unless they wanted a siren to drag them into the water. From experience Dick knew that that space wouldn’t be enough if Bruce wanted to get to them. He was massive, large even by siren standards and more stubborn than anyone else. If he wanted you dead, you’d be no matter how far away from him you truly stayed.

“Dick,” Wally finally spoke up. “What is going on?”

Dick had no idea how he was supposed to start. He hadn’t ever said a word to anyone, not a single living soul. He’d been angry at Bruce when he had left, but not so angry that he would give away all their secrets.

He turned to look at his father and the mer clicked at him. _Yes_.

“I was nine when that huge earthquake hit Gotham,” Dick heard himself say. He felt like he was miles, years away from this room and moment. “We were performing in Gotham. I think I told you that I used to be part of a circus?”

Wally and Roy both nodded. Dick was pretty sure that even if he hadn’t, they’d have known. Dick would always be flipping, spinning, jumping and flying. Being an acrobat was in his blood.

“When the earthquake hit, we were in one of the underground trains. Gotham was built pretty much artificially. The earthquake shook it up pretty good and the support just broke. There are large caves underground, huge water dwellings. You can cross the entire city underground without ever touching the surface. Paths towards it are far and few and difficult to access. Most of the people living down there are physically unable to reach them. They don’t particularly care about them.”

“People?” Roy inquired.

Dick smiled wearily. “Yes, people. Mers. There is pretty much a second city right below Gotham. The waters there are toxic, mutated after years of waste being stuffed into them so most of the mers never leave. They’re pretty much incapable of breathing actually clean seawater.”

Dick glanced at Bruce again, who held his head high above the water. He’d always been able to breathe air as well, so he wasn’t suffering too much, but it would aid his recovery if he’d be allowed to submerge completely. They should throw some chemicals in the water, up the chlorine levels. Maybe Bruce’s fins would shine as prettily as they usually did then as well.

“But yes, the earthquake hit and the train crashed into one of those caves. Most people died upon impact or were so severely injured that they died soon after. Others drowned in the water.”

Roy and Wally looked positively sick. Dick couldn’t even blame them. He’d gotten used to the sight of bloated corpses, death and bloodshed to a degree that was honestly concerning.

“But you didn’t,” Wally said and sounded like he was half reassuring himself that his best friend was still there.

“I didn’t,” Dick replied. “Bruce saved me.”

The siren in question frowned when Dick’s friends both set their sights on him, confusion coloring their expressions. It was a little funny, to be honest.

“His name is Bruce?”

Roy’s voice sounded almost a little hysterical. He was probably trying to save up his panic attack for when he could afford to lose his calm in the privacy of his own home.

“It’s actually _dark-who-swims-with-the-sharks_,” Dick pointed out.

Wally mouthed the clicks and thrills Dick had let out so very easily by comparison, but just shook his head and gave up. “Yeah, that totally sounds like Bruce.”

“I was nine, I couldn’t exactly pronounce it either,” Dick defended himself. Bruce had been very proud of him the first time he actually had gotten it right. His name was still too long to use it regularly so the nickname had stuck.

“So Bruce saved you and what? Helped you back to the surface?”

“After a couple years,” Dick answered.

He didn’t want to think too much about it. In the beginning Bruce had been more concerned that Dick would make it through the nights. He had been injured by the fall and Dick almost couldn’t recall how long it had been until he’d been able to move on his own. A month or two? Probably longer. His diet had suffered a lot and he’d lost a lot of weight until Bruce had figured out that he could not in fact live of fish, never mind raw fish, alone. But then Dick had needed to learn how to hold his breath for a longer duration, until he could swim from the cave that was their home to the next and so on. He was fairly sure that if he tested against the current world champion, he’d be able to hold his breath minutes longer than them without any preparation.

“It’s not like there was anybody else and Bruce was the only other person who could understand me besides Alfred.”

Alfred had rarely left Bruce’s side, they were family after all. Dick knew that it was a common misconception amongst humans that sirens were solitary creatures, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. They just usually didn’t go anywhere near humans with the rest of their family and were therefore only ever spotted and caught on their own.

“Who is Alfred?”

“Another siren. Bruce’s sort of parent but not. It’s complicated and doesn’t translate well into English. He raised Bruce after his… owners died. Point is that I spent six years down in there with him until I reached the surface again for the first time. I think I looked like death, there’s not exactly a lot of bioluminescent fauna down there. I left when I was seventeen because I wanted to be amongst humans again. Studied a lot, played catch up with long-forgotten human manners and here I am.”

“Here you are,” Wally echoed, then froze up, realization settling in. “Is that why you didn’t know any TV shows whatsoever?”

“What?”

That was absolutely not the question Dick had expected. In fact, he had thought that at least one of them would run out screaming by now, calling the nearest clinic because Dick Grayson has gone insane! Or if not that, maybe a government office to inform that that mers were in fact as sentient as humans, had a language and one of them even raised a child. Wonder if that would get Dick an entry on Wikipedia.

“And your obsession with spices,” Wally continued. “And fruits. How are you even healthy, your diet must have been the stuff of nightmares.”

“It was okay,” Dick said. “Just because it’s hard for me to get in and out of the caves, doesn’t mean it was for everyone else. Bruce and Alfred brought me stuff they found out in the sea or on the beaches. I had clothes and like bagged chips, dried fruits and instant noodles. Even a couple books once we figured out how to transport them safely and life got a lot better after I could make my own trips upstairs. And then I left.”

That felt like a simplification, but he didn’t want to share all the gruesome details of that period. Sure, he had gotten books and could actually get caught up on school and the like, but he’d almost drowned on the regular making those trips, which lead to fights with Bruce which lead to leaving which lead to this.

Dick turned to the kid who had listened attentively to the conversation, but hadn’t actually added anything to it. He was a quiet boy, silent in a way Dick had never been. He had always been babbling in any language he knew, from English, Chinese and Spanish to Bruce’s language and all the other dialects of it that his friends had taught him.

“Shit, dude,” Roy cursed and buried his head in his hands. “You got raised by a freaking mer. You got _raised_ by a _mer_. How-?”

The rest of Roy’s question was lost to the overwhelming realization that Dick was not just one of them. He hadn’t ever felt like it, but he had been able to pretend and that had been good enough. There simply hadn’t been another option.

“So you haven’t actually spoken with… Bruce ever since?”

“No,” Dick answered. “No, I have not and now I’d like to know you found me.”

The kid, Tim, apparently didn’t catch onto the fact that Dick was talking to him now. His head was dropping and his eyes fluttering shut. He had had one hell of a day, just as exhausting as Dick if not worse because he was years younger than Dick

“Kid showed up here with a stolen boat and Bruce tucked into the cooler,” Wally said.

“Not stolen,” Tim muttered sleepily. “It’s mine. My parents were on it.”

When he said parents, his voice quivered so badly that Dick thought he was going to cry any second. Bruce picked up on that as well and moved away from Dick to pay full attention to Tim. He tugged on his legs again, trilling softly, and Tim pushed himself off the pool’s edge and jumped straight into the water, into Bruce’s arms. It was straight to see another child cling to Bruce when recalling how he used to hang onto Bruce. The fins on his arms were so long, Dick had been able to disappear completely in his embrace when he’s been younger. Only his black hair had been visible, like it was now with Tim. Wally and Roy stood up in alarm, but Dick gestured for them to sit down again. He supposed it looked frightening to them, the ocean’s most terrifying killers gently consoling a young child.

_“What happened?”_ Dick asked Bruce.

Tim was in no shape of answering now and Dick wouldn’t force him too, no matter how much he wanted an explanation.

_“I was caught,”_ Bruce replied. _“I was looking for terror-who-laughs, but secret-who-paints’s parents found me and put me in a viewing glass. Showed me off to other humans, but secret-who-paints is smart, kind. He’s a good child.”_

Bruce scowled and the displeasure was apparent. He hadn’t been in a pool since he was twelve and the Wayne’s had died. Being locked up like that again most have been horrible, especially since whoever Tim’s parents were, they definitely wouldn’t have been able to contain Bruce in a pool big enough for him.

_“And then venom-in-his-blood came.”_

Dick paled. He had hoped that he had misheard Tim before, that the child had made a mistake in his panic, but-

_“Venom-in-his-blood? Are you sure?”_

_“He attacked their ship_,” Bruce continued. _“Pulled them off, I’ve been on the sea with secret-who-paints on my own since, we only barely managed to escape.”_

“_But why would venom-in-his-blood show up in the first place? You defeated him years ago.”_

Dick remembered that battle vividly. He had been much younger than, small and helpless and had to watch from afar as Bruce and _venom-in-his-blood_ tore into one another.

_“He came back,”_ Bruce spat. “_He came back and Gotham’s falling apart.”_

“What are you two talking about?” Wally asked uneasily. “It sounds serious but we don’t speak… that.”

“There is a mer, another siren,” Dick began to explain. “His name is-“ Dick sighed in frustration. ”Just call him Bane. He’s dangerous, incredibly tall. Easily the biggest siren I’ve ever seen, bigger than the ones we have on record here. He attacks humans and mers alike.”

“What for?”

Dick turned to Bruce and Tim. Bruce was swimming slower now, just floating on the surface, really. The kid must have fallen asleep.

“Fun and hunger,” Dick finally replied after moments of silence. “He’s a cannibal and once he set his eyes on his prey, he doesn’t stop.”

Which meant that the moment Bruce swam back to Gotham, Bane would attack him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it and I'd love to hear what you think!


End file.
